Will the Sale of a few assets get our economy on the path to growth and sustainability.Posted on March 8th, 2017

By Garvin Karunaratne

It is reported that the IMF is recommending the Sale of a few of our Assets- the Colombo Hilton, Lanka Hospitals, Hyatt Hotel and Waters Edge -all to bag $ 1.5 billion to solve today’s economic crisis. What really happens is that this $ 1.5 billion will be paid to our creditors and the country will limp on to the next Armageddon that will come within another few months. This is fact and not fiction. We need this foreign exchange to pay our creditors at the moment . This money that comes in from the IMF gets paid out and we are left in the same state we are in. It is essentially a no win situation, where we raise loans to pay debts and the money gets shunted back to the IMF and other financial institutions of the Developed Countries and simultaneously also gets into our books as an addition to our foreign debt. In the meantime the valuable national assets had been sold . The country is the net loser.

A new development paradigm of growth is essential. The Model of development held up by the IMF and foised on Third World Countries since the Seventies has made all countries bankrupt within four decades.

The IMF Chief is expected to grace our island and it is hoped that she will be able to put our country on the path to growth and sustainability.

To start with one has to understand that Sri Lanka as well as other Third World Countries did have sustainable economies and were not in debt in the Sixties. We had a development infrastructure that enabled us to get into production and had development projects and programmes ; we controlled our foreign exchange and used it in the national interest, limited imports so that we could manage our outgoings with the incoming foreign exchange.

To quote Noble Laureate Professor Jeffery Sachs:

Western Governments enforced draconian budget policies in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. The IMF and the World Bank virtually ran the economic policies of the debt ridden continent recommending regimens of budgetary belt tightening known technically as Structural Adjustment Programs. These Programs have little scientific merit and produced even fewer results. By the start of the Twentyfirst century Africa was poorer than in the late 1960s when the IMF and the World Bank had first arrived on the scene, with disease, population growth and environmental degradation spiralling 3out of control. IMF led Austerity has frequently led to riots, coups and the collapse of public services.”(The End of World Poverty)

Sri Lanka’s foreign debt in 1977 was only $ 750 million(That too on projectdevelopment) when it commenced following the Structural Adjustment Program laid out by the IMF. Within four years of following liberalization and free trade, prescribed by the IMF, the foreign debt increased to $ four billion and by 2003 increased to ten billion. Following the prescriptions of the IMF we had to allow the use of foreign exchange freely, allow the import of luxury goods and as the debt increased we had to borrow more and more, purely to service the debt. Today the foreign debt stands at $ 70 billion. This $ 70 billion includes the funds spent to buy weapons to defeat the LTTE insurrection and funds spent on the infrastructure of highways and ports. Throughout this period of four decades Sri Lanka has been trying to follow the path laid by the IMF to the best of its ability.

What went wrong? As stated by the United Nations’ Human Development Report of 1996,

The stabilization measures of the IMF aimed at reducing both budget deficits and usually involved cutting public spending and increasing interest rates… Although these policies reduced deficits in some countries they often did so at the cost of inducing recession. In short they often balanced budgets by unbalancing people’s lives.”

As stated by Professor Joseph Stiglitz, once the Chief Economist of the World Bank,

The mistakes of the IMF were sufficiently frequent that they clearly weren’t just an accident.. They chose the models that led to wrong predictions, wrong policies and really negative consequences.” (‘The Hospital that makes you sicker’ in New Internationalist, March 2003).

What happened to these countries that were having sound sustainable economies till the IMF came up with the SAP?

Let us look at the tenets of the Structural Adjustment program which was imposed on our Third World countries which led us to become indebted.

The main tenets of the SAP are to allow the free use of foreign exchange for every citizen to use as they wish- for children to be educated overseas, for luxury travel- even go on cruises, import anything, to be done without any restriction even when the treasury of the country does not have any foreign exchange. The country is expected to get money on loan and if that is not sufficient, sell off State assets to meet the demand. Working on this basis it was inevitable that the country became indebted. This was a total recipe for bankruptcy. It is also noteworthy that the IMF provided loans at low interest and also with grace periods where no payment was required to entice the countries to borrow and get on the path prescribed by them. This meant that the leaders of the country at that time may not be in office when the loans had to get repaid. Later on the IMF increased the interest rate and further on even refused loans.

In addition, the SAP provisions include a high interest regime, in Sri Lanka banks charged an interest rate of about 25% and this made all entrepreneurs give up their enterprises because they could not compete with imports which were freely allowed without any taxes or reduced taxes. The local entrepreneurs found easy earning by depositing the money in bank drafts than in engaging in trade or production.

The local currency, the Rupee was also taken out of the control of the Government. The incoming foreign exchange was to be controlled by supply and demand. A heavy demand was created because foreign exchange was freely allowed and with limited supply the Rupee fell in value- was devalued. When the IMF’s Structural Adjustment was introduced to Sri Lanka in 1977 the Rupee fell in value from Rs. 15.70 to the GBP in 1977 to Rs 35.00 to the GBP in 1978, marking a drop of over 100%, within a few months. Instead of the Government deciding the exchange rate, it was the banks that decided the exchange rate. The banks accepted the foreign exchange , hoarded it and offered it at a higher rate, keeping massive profits. In 2001, when the Government banks had to pay a large oil bill in foreign currency and the public sector banks did not have sufficient foreign funds to meet it. they had to go to the foreign banks that had hoarded the foreign currency. The foreign banks then increased the price of the foreign exchange they had. This did happen in Sri Lanka on 25/1/2001 when the $ US that was trading around Rs 82.00 was increased to Rs. 100 and Rs. 106.. The profit goes to the foreign bank. The Central Bank was helpless and said, ‘in a free floating regime the market forces determine the exchange rate. The Central Bank does not intervene in the process. The Central Bank has control only over the domestic money supply.’ (.The Island: 17/02/2001)

On 22/02/17 the US $ reached Rs. 154.44, which amounted to a Rs.4.44 increase since November, a 6% increase.(The Island:22/2/2017) . If we continue on the path of the IMF the day is not far off when the Rupee will be devalued by 100%, similar to what happened in 1978. As proved conclusively in my book: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development, ” even the foreign exchange earnings of a sovereign country is a commodity exploited to make a profit.”

Thus the foreign debt was created by the IMF through its ridiculous Free Market Neo Liberal Model of allowing borrowing to spend beyond one’s means for luxury goods, luxury travel etc. without matching the expenditure to the incoming foreign exchange, and the abolition of the development infrastructure that Sri Lanka had built up, which led to the reduction of local production and increased imports to take its place.

All Third World countries have become indebted purely because they have followed the Structural Adjustment Programme provisions and it is up to the IMF to kindly consider changing the conditions laid down.

The changes suggested by me in my book: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development include:

Countries should control the incoming foreign exchange.. allow for essential imports, Countries should decide the exchange rate…

Countries should not allow the devaluation of their currencies,

Countries should have two budgets, a foreign exchange budget dealing with the disposal of the incoming foreign exchange and a separate local currency budget.. this dual budget system is nothing new… this was how national budgeting was done in every Third World country till the IMF took over.

Countries should commence development planning,

Countries should build up the commercial infrastructure necessary for development,

Countries should impose high tariffs on every item that can be produced locally,

Countries should follow Import Substitution as a policy and establish industries to produce the items that are imported.

Development to be on a dual basis by the Public Sector as well as the Private Sector. Even Professor Jeffery Sachs in his latest book: The Price of Civilization, advocates action by the Public Sector to control and encourage activity by the Private Sector,

Get away from thinking that Foreign Direct Investment is the key to development. FDI should be limited to areas where foreign expertise is needed for development and local expertise is not available. Locals should be offered tax havens and other subsidies for development.

To get out of the woods we have to have a large number of projects and programmes aimed at creating production and incomes.

Finally , Are new funds required for new development programmes? New programmes and projects are essential to bring about development.

There is always a constraint on developing new programs or projects. However it is my experience that savings can be found within approved votes of expenditure to attend to many new projects.

As stated by me: No new funds are required for development. Every country has a plethora of development programs. What is required is for these existing programs to be re oriented with skills training and entrepreneurial guidance when necessary. Officers have to be re trained and re deployed. In the Youth Self Employment Programme(YSEP) of Bangladesh, a Programme entirely designed and established by me, all Youth Workers became more economists. When machinery has to be imported too no- new allocation is required. The funds earmarked for imports can be utilized to import the machinery instead of importing that item.” It will be interesting to note that the YSEP I designed and implemented in Bangladesh in 1982 with no special allocation, done on savings and redeploying officers, has been carefully worked on by the staff I trained and is today the premier employment creation program in the World. Between 1982 and 2011 this program guided over two million youths to become self employed.

Currently 160,000 youths are guided annually to become self employed.

Sri Lanka as well as other indebted countries have to work on controlling their foreign exchange, restrict imports, develop projects of import substitution to produce national requirements, create production and incomes for its people. There is no other way ahead.

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

Former SLAS, Government Agent, Matara,

Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Labour and Manpower, Bangladesh in 1982, 1983.

Author of : How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development, 2017

How the IMF and the World Bank Ruined Sri Lanka, 2006

8/3/2017

38 Responses to “Will the Sale of a few assets get our economy on the path to growth and sustainability.”

Sadly this is end result of limitless borrowing since 2010. As a family will have to sell their house to repay loans if they cannot service them, Sri Lanka has to sell family silver.

By 2009 our foreign debt was only $18 billion. It grew to $64 billion (including CEB, CPC direct borrowings of $10 billion) by end 2014 and now it is $74 billion. Nothing much was done with borrowings after 2009 as most useful development work had their money before that. Since 2013 almost all state revenue goes to service debt.

The time we should have worried was when we borrowed, not when repayments fall due. Then it is too late.

The MR/UPFA govt had the repayments of the loans they took for infrastructure development well in hand. The expressways were generating income as was the Colombo Port. The plan was to use the Colombo Port income to service the Hambantota Port payments in the short term until Hambantota started to generate income and take over paying off the loans.

There was a sound plan to repay the loans without giving up a majority stake in the equity. A minority stake given to China was expected to ensure their continued oarticipation in operating the Port and using the Port for theor Maritime Silk Road traffic. Sri Lanka’s equity stake and the agreement to use mostly Sri Lankan workers would generate income for both the government and the people of the area though employment.

Furthermore, the total land allocated to the project industrial zone was about 650 acres on a 49-year lease, not 15000 acres on a renewable 99-year lease. The latter has the potential to create a Chinese Colony in Sri Lanka that would be hard to get rid of because of residence outside the zone, intermarriage etc etc.

The Yamaoalanaya IDIOTS upset this finely crafted plan to benefit Sri Lanka with rapid repayment via the generated income by alienating the Chinese and then caving-into them as abject beggars when the truth if their financial bungling hit home!

As MR has said, with the loans the Yamapalanaya took in the 2 years they have been in power they took loans sufficient to build and operate ALL the infrastructure projects he had created, WITHOUT building ANY INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT to date!

So, when you rightly critucize UNLIMITED BORROWING, please do not include the INVESTMENT borrowing by the MR/UPFA that had a SOUND AFFORDABLE REPAYMENT PLAN, and did create VALUABLE INFRASTRUCTURE that is now generating income to the country.

IN STARJK CONTRAST, the Yamapslanaya borrowed money for CURECT CONSUMPTION, not for INVESTMENT in enduring INFRASTRUCTURE that were/would generate substantial income to the nation.

Today, Hambantota Port is generating a healthy income. The Yamapalanaya should attract tourists and goods shipments (UPS, FEDEX etc) to the Mattala Airport and use it as back up for Katunagake putting in express land transport between Hambantota and Colombo.

Singapore became wealthy partly because of the services it’s Port provided to trans-Pacific-Indian Ocean traffic.Hanbantota has the opportunity to emulate that and earn a huge income. The Yamapalana IDIOTS have given up the ENTIRETY OF THAT INCOME STREAM to China!

Where is the BENEFIT to Sri Lanka and it’s people that the VISIONARY MR/UPFA government SAW and ACTED UPON!

This is a national crisis; not a political party crisis. We should look at it from the national point of view. Not from a political party point.

Mahinda was excellent in managing borrowings when he was the finance minister (2005-09). However, things went bad since 2010 when someone else became the economic affairs minister. From 2006 to 2009 (inclusive) foreign borrowings were just $6 billion and were used in highly beneficial projects. Undoubtedly the best era of economic management while successfully winning the war.

Sadly the same cannot be said about borrowings from 2010 to 2014. $36 billion was borrowed by the state from foreign sources and there are no assets to show even 20% of it. Most beneficial assets were constructed from money borrowed before 2010. According to the economic affairs minister, 90% of foreign borrowings since 2010 were spent in the north and east.

In addition, CEB, CPC, etc. directly borrowed approximately $10 billion from foreign sources for the first time. In total $46 billion was borrowed during Mahinda’s second term. Truth to be told, 70% of all foreign borrowings since Independence was made during Mahinda’s two terms.

So far this government has borrowed about $10 billion from foreign sources. There are no assets constructed. This is the second highest foreign borrowings by any regime.

Selling national assets is a sign of utter economic desperation but given Sri Lanka’s predicament there will be no choice.

I know for certain that the Yahap Finance section has a ‘Crash & Sell’ program in mind.

Otherwise, why the Central Bank Bond Scam (twice) ?
The UNP coffers were empty, now full. MPs were bought over, as were others, with Cash, car permits and other goodies.

Every time the UNP came with Ranil at the helm in some way or the other, some skullduggery happened with the Country. Batalanda tortures, Norwegian peacekeeper fiasco with mini-subs (for the built up LTTE in the N&E ?), and now the ‘Crash & Sell’ program. When something smells like skunk, looks like skunk and acts like skunk, it is SKUNK.

Now it is up to the Concerned Citizenry to prove that it is SKUNK.

RW/CBK have no love of Lanka, or they love foreign countries better, or they are merely inept, or all of these reasons – they have proven it, and are too far gone in lack of love, to bring this state of affairs to the long suffering and insecure citizens of Lanka. Pres MS said on appointing Ranil as Exec PM : ‘the west wants it so’. Why ?

Our thanks to Ananda & Dilrook for attempts to de-mystify the whole financial drama with facts and figures.

The official estimate of what Sri Lanka currently owes its financiers is $64.9 billion — $8 billion of which is owned by China. The country’s debt-to-GDP currently stands around 95.4% of all government revenue is currently going towards debt repayment.

As you can see total borrowing from 2008 to 2014 (7 years) is around $26 billion including the cost of war and visible development and total borrowing from 20015 to 2016 (2 years)is around $15 billion with no specific sign of development

Those figures prove my point. However, they exclude direct foreign borrowings of CEB, CPC, etc. which is estimated (the real number is not known) to be $10 billion.

I quoted end of 2014 foreign debt as $54 billion (plus the $10 billion above) as opposed to $50 estimate above. Current debt is $64 plus the $10 billion.

Approximately $6 billion was borrowed since 2006 to end of 2009 (inclusive). No dispute about its utility. All this were spend very well.

My only dispute is the outstanding debt to GDP percentage. That is not a good measure of foreign debt because only a fraction of our GDP is in foreign currency. Outstanding foreign debt to foreign reserves is a better indicator for Sri Lanka.

By the time Mahinda ended his term, Sri Lanka was already in a debt crisis. This report and many others worked off 2014 data. This link has been shared in many Lankan economics discussions.

I don’t know why you say they bear out what you said; except in the total outstanding debt being near to your figure, they DON’T!

Let me explain.

1. My contention was partly what NMY stated in his last paragraph: that $26B was spent by the MR GOSL from 2008 to 2014 with a significant INVESTMENT in development while $15B was spent by the Yamapalanaya from 2015-2016 with NO development and ENTIRELY on CONSUMPTION!

If we include $10B for additional CEB+CPC etc borrowings as a CONSUMPTION spending, the MR GOSL total borrowings goes up only to $36B.

The IMPORTANT aspect here is that the majority of the spending by the MR GOSL was on INVESTMENT in INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT rather than CONSUMPTION.

2. The second part of my contention was that the MR GOSL had a SOUND SYSTEMATIC REPAYMENT PLAN based on using the revenue to the GOSL generated directly and indirectly from these investments, that ghe Yamapslanaya GUTTED!

NMY’s data does not affirm that, and AS YET I only have newspaper reports and other verbal video claims by MR GOSL supporters to support that.

Those reports say that MR GOSL debt was entirely within the ability of the government to service and payoff. The repayment PLAN was that the Colombo Port was generating a healthy income that could service the Hambantota Port loans in the short term, that Hambantota Port was now beginning to generate a significant income, and that the plan was to repay the Hambantota Port loan entirely from its own income when it was operating at full capacity. It was also said, that the equity stake given to the Chinese was to bind them to the project and exploit their Maritime Silk Road traffic to support the Hambantota Port and the small 650 acre industrial zone while generating a healthy income for Sri Lankan workers who would be the vast majority of the workers at the Port.

I want to also note that the loans allocated to building High-Speed Expressways by the MR GOSL were also largely self-sustaining through toll generated income.

Under the MR GOSL Hsmbznyota Port plan, at least 51% ownership would be in SL hands, the lease period was shorter at 49-years, most workers would be Sri Lankan, the industrial zone would be smaller (650 vs 15000 acres), AND all port security and navigation would be in Sri Lankan hands as a matter of maintaining SL sovereignty, and the Port loan would be paid off quickly depending on the Poet generated income, perhaps in much less than the lease period of 49-years.

As one who has bought and sold many residential houses for my living and for rental purposes with 30-year low-interest loans, and profited mightily, I think the MR GOSL plan was not only very sound but also preserved Sri Lanka’s National Interest.

That is the way to finance big investments when you don’t have the capital for outright purchase!

……..

Rather than asking you to believe my unsubstantiated statements, I will research and present at LankaWeb additional credible information on how the MR GOSL planned to repay the Hambantota Port loan.

I agree with Dilrook, given that most of SL debt is foreign, and has to be repaid in foreign currency, Total Debt as a % of GDP (which was quite good at 75.54 in 2014) is not a good indicator of SL’s ability to repay.

Dilrook’s suggestion that we use foreign debt as a % of foreign reservested is better but not sufficient either.

An additional indicator such as debt service payments as a % of government revenue (which is currently at a frightening 95.4%) should be used in addition to Dilrook’s recommended indicator of foreign debt as a % of foreign reserves.

The debt service payments % of government revenue is quite similar to the index used by home mortgage to originate a home loan, and credit card lenders to determine your interest rate based on risk of default.

The additional $10 billion is stated in another article published in Lankaweb recently. It states $9.5 billion.

1. Quote – The IMPORTANT aspect here is that the majority of the spending by the MR GOSL was on INVESTMENT in INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT rather than CONSUMPTION.

True about investments before 2010 but only partly true for investments after 2010. First, there are no investments to that huge value of $36 billion in that time. Secondly, most investments after the war were unproductive compared to previous investments.

2. Quote – The second part of my contention was that the MR GOSL had a SOUND SYSTEMATIC REPAYMENT PLAN based on using the revenue to the GOSL generated directly and indirectly from these investments, that ghe Yamapslanaya GUTTED!

Not true. I have given a link to show Sri Lanka was in debt trap by 2014 figures. By 2012 and all years thereafter almost 94% (and more) of state revenue went for debt servicing. In 2013 it was 103% and by 2014 it was 94%.
Government had to borrow to meet its expenditure commitments. Further, by 2014 the government targeted a budget deficit which means it even planned to borrow!

I agree it worsened under the Sirisena-Ranil regime. There are no assets constructed from nearly $10 billion borrowings. It was utterly foolish to promise a 10,000 rupee salary hike just to win the election. It costs $1 billion a year more. Mahinda could have wooed some of these voters by matching it but he was not as foolish.

All in all, Sri Lanka now faces $75 billion total debt caused mainly by Mahinda and Sirisena and nearly 100% of state revenue going to service debt. That means all other expenses must be met by borrowing. We can blame one another but it is the nation that suffers.

The impacts are enormous. It can economically justify the north and east to split leaving the debt to Sri Lanka. In other words, the north and east have an added incentive to split and they will benefit.

I plead everyone to take a national view on this very crucial matter and not a petty political view. You owe it to the nation that gave you everything it could afford (and even things it couldn’t afford).

I will submit further data and comments on the MR GOSL plan to repay the infrastructure investment debts, to refute your conclusion on that.

I disagree that because we are all Sri Lankans in common, that it is not useful to allocate blame correctly. It is very important to do so, because that establishes who can be trusted to efficiently govern the nation and preserve the national interest, and who cannot be so trusted. That lack of trust can arise from sheer incompetence as managers of the national economy, or even worse, from the lack of a patriotic motivation to preserve our national assets without destroying all the achievements of the previous government.

Our hopes for pulling ourselves into parity with other countries, depends on our preserving thr unique afvantages conferted by our national assets, such as the Hambantota Port straddling the East-West Maritime Highway, without giving away almost the only real advantage that we had!

WHAT A DISASTER!

Some other way has to be found to solve our debt-trap problem SHORT OF LEASING OUT 80% of the Port and 15,000 acres of our land on 99-year renewable leases without even an AGREEMENT that at least 95% of the jobs will be for Sri Lankans, and retaining control over port security and navigation. This is a disaster of MASSIVE PROPORTION!

How can we ever repay when we have given away the means of generating an income to do so?

“How can we ever repay when we have given away the means of generating an income to do so?”

I agree with USA. IF repaying loans are difficult now, it will become IMPOSSIBLE when we sell income generating assets!! What a dumb strategy of the govt.

It is like you borrow a loan for a CHICKEN FARM. You repay the loan by selling eggs and some chooks. Then you are behind repayment and you sell your hens to repay the loan!! NO EGGS and NO MORE chooks thereafter!! How the hell are you going to repay ANYTHING?? You go BUST!

But MR should NOT have done money wasting things.

1976 NON ALIGNED CARNIVAL ended Sirima a year later and CHOGM CARNIVAL ended MR a year later.

But according to Ranil Wickremasinghe the government faces a debt burden of USD 15,000 billion. This information appeared on the appeared on the Daily Mirrors front page on 09th of March 2017 and based on this information Daily Mirror is conducting an internet poll.

Looks like Ranil is all out to spread wild rumours on our economy. He is a bloody fool, could not read the value of any figure over 1000. Those who can read Sinhala please read this report appeared on lankacnews.

I think we should sell off some of our loss making tea estates so that they could market our tea and getter better price.
If we can invest in Western countries then the must be allowed to do the same in SL.

I agree completely with Fran’s view that NO LAND, tea estates or any other, should be sold to non-citizens, foreign companies, or foreign countries.

Sri Lanka’s land is sacred. It is our Motherland, NEVER to be sold to any foreigner EVER!

We, individually, as a people, and as a government reflecting the will of the people, OWN THIS LAND in TRUST for our descendents, generations yet born, as our revered ancestors held it for us, and fought and died to preserve it for us. We CAN and MUST, do no less.

Today, a stupid minister has said that 200,000 jobs are going a begging in the industrial free-zones, and we should IMPORT workers, laborers and such, from abroad to fill those jobs.
He said our people feel it is beneath their “dignity” to work in such jobs.

It was just such wrong thinking by British Colonialists that inflicted Indian Tamils workers of the Tea Estates upon the native people of Sri zlanka. Perhaps, if the British had approached the Sinhala people differently under a profit sharing, shared ownership model, the sovereign fiercely independent Sinhala people would have responded differently. Instead, they tried to treat these independent free-hold farmers as potential slaves working at a subsistence level for food only. Yes, the starving coolies they imported from Tamil Nadu were willing to that but not the Sinhala people who were already enjoying a better life on their own.

Today, in Sri Lankans as literate citizens of middle income country expect more including a living wage. Let us not try to convert them into abjectly poor slaves again. Even for a laborer job, give them good wages, better working conditions, and the modern equipment that make the labor easier and more productive, and you will have Sri Lankans more thsn willing to do the work. The difference will be that it is not a despised “laborer” job, but a well paid job that enables that petson to provide for his/her family, and a job worth fighting for.

Do you think this is UTOPIAN? Think again ….. for such well pain laborer jobs exist in the USA too. They are called construction employees, not laborers! Many of them operate heavy machinery like tractors, back hoes, cement trucks, earth moving vehicles, and supervise ghe work! Such jobs enable them to own homes and send their children to scools and state universities.

In brief, LET US NOT IMPORT WORKERS FROM ABROAD for jobs made MENIAL because we persist in doing them in old ways and rewarding the people who do them insufficiently. THE FAULT US OURS,not that of the worker. Train, equip and empower the worker to perform the same function in a MORE PRODUCTIVE WAY, that merits a higher wage!

Over 150,000 jobs in the free trade zones are going a begging due to want of takers.

Public Enterprise Development Minister Eran Wickremeratne told The Sunday Island yesterday that Sri Lanka may have to get down unskilled workers such as labourers from abroad, if people considered it below their dignity to perform such tasks.

“There are over 150,000 unskilled jobs waiting to be filled in the economic zones, but there are no takers”, he revealed. Some people, Wickremeratne explained, may not want to do such jobs, since it was below their salary expectations, while certain others did not want to move too far away from their home base.

He said that the government had embarked on a drive to create a large knowledgeable workforce, which included a compulsory 13-year education for children.

Moves were also underway to increase the annual intake to universities from 26,000 to 50,000 , the Minister added.

Thank you for the information, Ananda. We agree with all you say here.

———–

More to do :

Even the tea plucking can be done with machines. This is how tea is plucked in many countries that grow tea including Japan, S. Africa, even parts of INDIA which country has so much cheap labor ! Machines do the work of 4 workers.

I have seen articles in the web on how ‘badly’ tea workers of Lanka are treated, and their poor living conditions (I am adding: living in British built line rooms).
All this is added to ‘how badly Tamils are discriminated in Lanka’.
If more cheap labor is imported, there will be many, many problems a while later.

Increasing the intake into Universities and producing Arts grads will do no good for the country. Lanka needs job oriented education programs. Far better to have govt Polytechnics etc after the A-levels.

Please tell our moronic leaders not to get down workers from abroad. They will never leave and will become part of the tamils in Sri Lanka. Are they all insane. Sri Lanka is too small as it is for the 21 million people.

RW has been the worst of the UNPers. He has surrounded himself with a bunch of very dubious people and is running the country to the ground. His plan appears to be to bankrupt the country and then when it is helpless bring in his new Constitution to break it up so that the former Colonial masters can move in and take over once again. Though people accused MR of being a dictator RW is worse than anyone we have ever seen. He hides behind My3’s platitudes and is doing as he pleases. Last year he went to Davos in Switzerland with 40 of his lackeys and appears to be doing the same this year. The visit to Davos did not bring any benefit for Sri Lanka and it is a very expensive place to visit since it is a meeting place for billionaires. Poor taxpayers have to pay for all this nonsense. I think RW is laying the ground work to give land to the Colonials to receive 5000-acre parcels on a 99-year lease by creating a PRECEDENT with the Chinese by giving 15,000 acres which are excessive.

Ranil and the Yahapalana bandwagon after doing virtually nothing for two years has finally done something which was made to be a huge project. It turns out to be a smoke and mirrors type of sleight of hand operation. The BOI made it appear that they were doing a major Volkswagen factory and what they ended up doing was to get a local businessman some land from a prime coconut estate in the Kurunegala electorate, on which he is to set up a vehicle assembly plant. This is similar to the one done earlier by Fernandopulle to import used cars as parts and assemble and sell them locally to prevent taxes going to GoSL. The businessman supposedly benefited by getting prime land free or at little cost and then assembling cars and selling with no taxes to GoSL. The is probably worth more than what he invested.

Everything this Yahapalanaya has done is a racket. Starting with the Ranil/Arjuna Bond Scam which is still not resolved, to this current fiasco. They seem unable to work straight. With people who seem to be hell-bent on filling their pockets only with no loyalty to either Buddhist teachings, the Sinhalese or Sri Lanka what can you expect?

My3 is a puppet going round opening buildings started by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and doing the bidding of the local puppet master RW. Can someone please tell me what RW achieved in a lifetime of politics in Sri Lanka? He and the then UNP only helped to kill about 80-90,000 innocent Sinhala youth during the 1988 riots when the JVP wanted the 13A removed. Instead of talking to them he set up the Batalanda torture chamber where he is supposed to have presided over torture and killing.

RW has been a blot on the Sri Lanka political landscape for decades now. All the great UNPers such as Lalith, Gamini, Premadasa were killed by LTTE while this guy is still around. RW had made a statement that the Hambantota port was making a loss and only after the UNP came in that they will start making a profit. This is utter bull s..t since it was making a lot of money earlier by bunkering of Chinese and other ships going to Africa and the Middle East. After the UNP came they stopped everything associated with the Chinese and turned to the West licking their backsides in a pathetic display of abject desperation to get money and more political power. Nothing manifested other than platitudes and pats on the back and handshakes with ungloved hands and some small funds from the US.

After wasting two years now they have turned back to the Chinese and are trying to restart the projects that President Mahinda Rajapaksa initiated. MR was doing it the correct way without selling the country to foreigners. As Wimal has said the “Wikunanasinghe” has started selling all the profit making GoSL institutions, prime tea estates, coconut estates, and even our people. He is is a man with no ideas or vision and can only act according to the script from his handlers. What a fiasco Sri Lanka is undergoing. We have the disloyal Tamils trying to create Dravidasthan for the Untouchable Tamils in Tamil Nadu to pour into Lanka, and we have the Western back licking Colombians who are more Westernized than the Westerners themselves. The West is corrupt and the societies are crashing. In the USA there is so much gun violence that the only advice the new President-Elect could give Americans to counter gun violence is for everyone to carry a gun like in the old wild west. Is this the model Sri Lanka is trying to emulate?In the USA heroin addiction is now reaching epidemic proportions.

After the unjust bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan by the Western countries,in their frustration, the Muslim radicals have formed and are hell-bent on revenge for all the millions killed in the Middle east. I think this is going to end in World War III which will kill everyone if global climate anomalies do not kill them first. As educated human beings do we have to live like this spouting only lies for short term benefits all the time. Personally, I would prefer to beg on the street instead of lying to the people and ones own self.

We have to ask ourselves where we are headed if all these falsehoods are not going to end. Even Economics must be based on truth and reality, as people must too. The Buddha said that ‘Right Livelihood’ (the Noble Eightfold Path), brings happiness.

Foreign workers who come in will pull in MORE foreign workers to enter Lanka !
Look at the endless troubles with Tamil workers from TN. There are 15 Million more Tamil Dalits in Tamil Nadu waiting to get out due to real discrimination in TN. Their low caste status is in their birth certificates and INDIA does the Census base on Caste.

STOP THIS – Lanka is too small for large influx of workers from outside !

All progressive countries go global and we can’t have double standards by preventing foreign companies owning and developing a country which bring benefits to all, just as we Sri Lankans are allowed to settle and buy and run businesses in other countries.
Whatever some say against globalization, it would be inevitable. One can’t pedal against the tide. Just as in Zimbabwe if we follow their example life will get worse before it get better. So why go through the downward loop, suffer and eventually accept the truth? Now the desperate Zimbabweans are looking for foreigners to come back to invest and it’s only the Chinese have taken that offer and others are waiting for the old goat to get off the seat.

Why do you offer the failed-state of Zimbabwe as an example of what could befall Sri Lanka?

Why not offer positive examples of a few other countries, such as Switzerland and Japan, that carefully control immigration and foreign ownership, to retain their culture, and preserve their resources for their own descendents, even as they heavily engaging in global trade?

They engage in global trade the CORRECT WAY, while many other nations do it the WRONG WAY and fall into trouble, failibg thrir protect the rights of their citizens.

Many countries of Europe fell into this TRAP of EQUATING Global Trade with Global Immigration and Foreign Ownership.

Now, there is a STRONG DEBATE and FERMENT in these countries about WHAT POLICIES THEY SHOULD ADOPT to preserve their cultures and their ownership of their National Resources to benefit their own citizens.

That is the REASON for BREXIT; the Patriotic British people recognized the danger of what was happening to their countries wallowing in EU policies, and PULLED BACK.

That is PRECISELY what is happening in the United States which is PULLING BACK from its totally LAISSIAZ-FAIRE policies to preserve the national interest.

There are referendums scheduled in 2017 in MANY EU countries to execute similar REVERSALS of their past policies, and perhaps to even LEAVE the EU altogether.

In yesterday’s vote in the Netherlands referendum, the govt barely won approval for msintaining the status-quo, especially wrt immigration policy, but nearly half of the citizenry favoured leaving the EU.

Many other countries will have similar referenda in 2017 driven by immigration policy, the need to preserve national resources in national hands, and to preserve the right of the people to enact their own laws, not some nameless, faceless bureaucracy in Brussels.

Today, Sri Lankans are deba ting these very same issues also, but they are primarily debating the wisdom of allowing nameless faceless international bureaucracies and foreign powers to imposee laws upon Sri Lanka, to divide our country to suit their agendas, to buy-up our national resources in their own interest, to change our culture, even our laws on what constitutes marriage and permissible sexual activities, and even the right to prosletize their reliongs in our country!

Isn’t it ABOUT TIME that Sri Lankans TOOK CHARGE OF OUR MOTHERLAND in OUR own LONG-TERM INTEREST, and endured whatever pain and suffering that entails?

I think IT IS ABOUT TIME we ACTED in the greater good of ourselves and generations of our descendents yet unborn!

Ananda
To begin with, modern Japanese are not worried about religion or culture and they belong to the modern world. They are workaholics trying to make a living, working with very little annual leave. They are very much developed in their technology and have a complex that is latent and we should be cautious of it and I am glad the yanks have bases close to those countries.
As far as Sri lanka is concerned, we need foreign capital to improve the infrastructure. We need the foreign expertise too.
I remember in 50s how the foreign companies were contracted to do the Victoria dam and the water schemes where if not for those foreigners we would not have performed to the highest standards though our qualified engineer never was able guide us and the work was horribly substandard and we were trained to chase the locals to do it right and it was very frustrating to say the least.Then I moved on to set up our own factories tuning out first the machines our selves which was considered a great achievement but I had to sadly leave the country because my sudda friend was kicked out due to crooked JR.
So don’t tell me how advanced we are or we were. Even now my investments in SL is having a rough time compared to what we have in other countries. We must have a closer look at our selves and find our short comings that is there in the country.
Only Sinhalese working for me here in UK is the worse out of the lot as I have to constantly keep and eye, unlike the others.
Hardly a Sinhalese hold a business in Uk,if any one is then that one will try their luck with crooked money while the shops owned by Tamils are doing well and mushrooming all over London. I am glad to see that the Tamil shops are employing our Sinhalese youth.
Only Sinhalese person I know owns a chicken takeaway and wish him all the luck and wish we had more.
Just as Western countries allow foreign investments and ventures, we must do likewise.
As a qualified engineer, I was horrified to notice our power in Kandy was cut off nearly 10 times in two months just because they were ignorant of the system where they should be doing their work without switching of the supply. Each time you switch of the supply could damage some domestic equipment which has an inductive load.
I was so fed up with the interruptions, had to go there and show them how to work on live without switching off.No country I go seen this nonsence.Over the last 50 years in London there were not less than 5 blackouts and some were due to cables being damaged by road works,etc.By the way one could touch live with the right precautions, which I have done in my early days of my job.I just can’t imagine a supergroup being knocked down by an engineer doing maintainace by knocking of the supply.This is what we have learned in the advance countries. Please forgive any errors as we have an big night event today and can’t correct errors as usual.

Ananda
To begin with, modern Japanese are not worried about religion or culture and they belong to the modern world. They are workaholics trying to make a living, working with very little annual leave. They are very much developed in their technology and have a complex that is latent and we should be cautious of it and I am glad the yanks have bases close to those countries.
As far as Sri lanka is concerned, we need foreign capital to improve the infrastructure. We need the foreign expertise too.
I remember in 50s how the foreign companies were contracted to do the Victoria dam and the water schemes where if not for those foreigners we would not have performed to the highest standards though our qualified engineer never was able guide us and the work was horribly substandard and we were trained to chase the locals to do it right and it was very frustrating to say the least.Then I moved on to set up our own factories tuning out first the machines our selves which was considered a great achievement but I had to sadly leave the country because my sudda friend was kicked out due to crooked JR.
So don’t tell me how advanced we are or we were. Even now my investments in SL is having a rough time compared to what we have in other countries. We must have a closer look at our selves and find our short comings that is there in the country.
Only one Sinhalese working for me here in UK is the worse out of the lot as I have to constantly keep and eye, unlike the others.
Hardly a Sinhalese hold a business in Uk,if any one is then that one will try their luck with crooked money while the shops owned by Tamils are doing well and mushrooming all over London. I am glad to see that the Tamil shops are employing our Sinhalese youth.
Only Sinhalese person I know owns a chicken takeaway and wish him all the luck and wish we had more.
Just as Western countries allow foreign investments and ventures, we must do likewise.
As a qualified engineer, I was horrified to notice our power in Kandy was cut off nearly 10 times in two months just because they were ignorant of the system where they should be doing their work without switching of the supply. Each time you switch off the supply could damage some domestic equipment which has an inductive load.
I was so fed up with the interruptions, had to go there and show them how to work on live without switching off.No country I go seen this nonsence.Over the last 50 years in London there were not less than 5 blackouts and some were due to cables being damaged by road works,etc.By the way one could touch live with the right precautions, which I have done in my early days of my job.I just can’t imagine a supergroup being knocked down by an engineer doing maintainace by knocking of the supply.This is what we have learned in the advance countries. Please forgive any errors as we have an big night event today and can’t correct errors as usual.
I am proud of the enlightened Sinhalese who work as hard as us in Colombo, sadly they are few and they live a such good life will never leave the island to settle abroad. I wanted them to join me but declined the offers as their lifestyles are enviably good and I am angry with the western countries for imposing severe visa restrictions on them to come on visits. Likes of us have been lobbying the politicians and authorities here to be more considerate to our genuine people who wants to travel. Our horrible politicians in SL never care about our people on this subject. I am glad the President of Turkey is making some noises though I not a fan of him but good for his recent barks.

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